Times defends hiring conservative Kristol

The New York Times’ hiring of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by neo-cons

Unlike The Times’ stable of biweekly columnists — including Maureen Dowd and fellow Standard alum David Brooks — Kristol will write only once a week, with his first column set for Jan. 7.

Rosenthal said that he has known Kristol since Rosenthal’s days as a Times White House correspondent when the conservative writer was Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff.

Offering Kristol a one-year contract made sense, Rosenthal said, given the increased interest in the 2008 election. But Kristol also had to end his arrangement with Time magazine, where he had been writing a column, albeit more irregularly.

Kristol will remain editor of the Weekly Standard, saying he does not expect any interference, since the magazine closes the end of the week and The Times column needs to be filed Sunday evening. Not to mention, Kristol is accustomed to working weekends as a regular panelist on "Fox News Sunday."

The Times has had conservative columnists before. William Safire had a long-running column — and since his retirement in 2005, Brooks joined the staff. But clearly, Brooks, author of “Bobos in Paradise” and a keen sociological observer, is far more palatable than Kristol to the readers of the liberal-leaning Times editorial page.

“We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill,” Rosenthal said, adding, “The whole point of the op-ed page is to air a variety of opinions.”

The weeks ahead, though, will prove whether some Times readers actually cancel their newspaper subscriptions — especially since TimesSelect, the Web pay wall guarding the section, was already killed off in September.

Either way, subscriptions aren’t the only metric that matters these days. Despised or not, Kristol is bound to create controversy (read: Web page views). It’s no surprise that during this overheated election season Newsweek and other such magazines are bringing in political lighting rods like Karl Rove and Markos Moulitsas.

“People who don’t want to hear what their ideological opponents have to say are making a gigantic mistake,” Rosenthal said.

And his new columnist agreed.

Kristol said that “contribut[ing] to the diversity of the Times is a worthwhile goal. And anyone threatening to cancel subscriptions,” he said, “can toughen up and take it.”